Letter 144

Abortion supporters say they are "tired of right-to-lifers trying to impose their religious beliefs on others."

Are these people upset over laws against murder and theft? Those laws are based on religious beliefs. Murderers and thieves do not share those beliefs. Are pro-abortion people tired of the government imposing other people's religious beliefs on would-be murderers and thieves?

As soon as we change the subject from abortion, it becomes obvious: laws are not bad if they happen to reflect some people's religious beliefs. Laws, after all, are based on a consensus about right and wrong. Since religion deals with right and wrong, laws and religion will often agree. Should we throw out all laws that happen to agree with people's religious beliefs? Of course not.

What abortion enthusiasts are upset about is that they are expected to live up to community standards of right and wrong. Just because those standards are similar to some people's religious beliefs doesn't excuse other people from complying. Most people are able to recognize that killing babies is wrong. If others can't see it, that is a fault in themselves, not in other people. After all, Jeffrey Dahmer didn't think killing and dining on his gay lovers was wrong. That didn't make him the helpless victim of other people's religious beliefs when he was arrested.

We don't need fewer people recognizing that we shouldn't kill babies. We need fewer people like these abortion fanatics pouting when they're held accountable for the evil they do.

Letter 145

Abortion enthusiasts say they are "tired of right-to-lifers trying to impose their religious beliefs on others."

The view that life begins at conception is not theology but biology. Just because the vast majority of people of faith recognize biological reality doesn't make that biological reality a religious matter. The vast majority of people of faith also recognize that the laws of aerodynamics allow airplanes to fly. That doesn't mean that airports are temples and TWA's flight schedules are holy writs.

These people need to learn the difference between physics and metaphysics. Maybe going back to their high school biology textbook would help.

Letter 146

Pro-abortion fanatics sometimes complain that they are "tired of right-to-lifers trying to impose their religious beliefs on others." They claim that abortion is specifically permitted under the "separation of Church and State."

Maybe somebody ought to tell these extremists that human sacrifice is not protected under the First Amendment.

Letter 147

Pro-abortion religious leaders sometimes argue, "Theologians have yet to agree on when life begins. We should not impose the views of a few on the others."

Well, America is not a theocracy. It is not run by preachers, priests, or theologians. We elect officials to make our laws based on solid scientific evidence. And science knows that each new individual's life begins at the moment of conception.

Theologians can debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. That has nothing to do with public policy.

The theological impact of abortion is indeed between women and their pastors, priests, shaman, and gurus. But the physical, scientific, and biological reality is public knowledge. Abortion kills a very young human being. Abortion kills the smallest, most vulnerable, and most defenseless members of our community. That is not something civilized societies allow.

Some religions demand human sacrifice. That doesn't mean we should make it legal. Should we allow people to continue to sacrifice babies on the altar of "choice" just because their religion (or more often, their irreligion) allows it?

Let's stick with hard-and-fast scientific truth. Abortion is killing. It hurts women and destroys families. Just because some religions think this is okay doesn't mean we should allow it.

Letter 148

Those favoring legal abortion claim that abortion is a religious issue, and that the government shouldn't be involved.

We've heard language like that before from other people wanting to defend a right to do wrong. Stephen Douglas said that the rights of slaves should be left to moralists and theologians, and kept out of the legal and political realm. As he put it, "The people of the slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves, that they bear consciences as well as we, and that they are accountable to God and their posterity and not to us. It is for them to decide therefore the moral and religious right of the slavery question for themselves."

In one debate, to the cheers of the audience, Douglas chastised Abraham Lincoln for calling slavery a violation of the law of God. "Better for him," Douglas said, "to adopt the doctrine of ‘judge not lest ye be judged.'"

Sound familiar?

Letter 253

Some advocates of legal abortion have argued that since theologians can't agree on when life begins, Roe v. Wade should stand.

These pro-choicers are trying to accomplish two things: casting abortion as a religious issue, and implying that the pro-abortion mentality is morally valid.

Abortionists know that if they achieve these goals, they're home-free. They can do whatever they want to women and children, because Americans respect others' religious beliefs.

The truth is, abortion is not a religious issue. It is impossible to determine, theologically, whether ensoulment happens at conception, at birth, or at any point in between. In fact, it can't be proven that there even is such a thing as a soul. Obviously, the question of when an individual human being's life begins has to be a scientific one, and the simple fact is that no modern medical text shows life to begin at any time other than the moment of conception. The fact that life begins at conception is a proven scientific fact that all the pro-abortion rhetoric in the world can't alter. But when you have them nailed on scientific grounds, abortion fanatics drag religion into the discussion.

One of the Mafia's greatest mistakes, from a public-relations standpoint, was to overlook this simple trick. If they could have cast prostitution, extortion, racketeering, and dealing drugs as religious issues, we would have no laws against organized crime.

It's about time the American people stopped letting these radical abortion fanatics get away with such a cheap trick.

Letter 254

Why is it that when abortion advocates start losing the battle on scientific grounds they drag in religion? I agree that theologians disagree about abortion. Fortunately, we don't live in a theocracy, so we don't have to wait until some theologians are done arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin before we settle the abortion issue. We can look at medicine, which tells us that abortion is dangerous to women. We can look at psychology, which tells us that abortion can do major damage to a woman's emotional well-being. We can look at sociology, which shows us that abortion contributes to family break-up and increased child abuse. We can look at epidemiology, which shows us that abortion increases both the incidence and the mortality of breast cancer.

If anything else caused all the problems abortion causes, we'd ban it tomorrow! But these fanatics try to dress up abortion as some sort of religious thing so that they can continue to make money from it at the expense of the women, children, and families of America. And I think that's disgraceful.

Let's base our laws on reality. Abortion is bad for everybody and needs to be stopped.

Letter 417

The photo accompanying last week's story, "Thousands March To Support Abortion Rights," featured a sign reading, "Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries."

We can assume this slogan was not meant literally. But one might ask why an abortion supporter would carry a sign mentioning rosaries or ovaries to begin with. Linking the two is a matter perhaps best left to psychiatrists.

Some abortion opponents are Roman Catholics. They might pray the Rosary. They might also eat fish on Fridays. Why not a sign saying, "Keep your fish off my fallopians?" The religious practices of your political opponents are their own private business. It's diversionary and silly to even bring them up.

We can assume that women who undergo abortions have ovaries. Otherwise, how could they have gotten pregnant? But only pro-choicers are anti-ovulation. They'd like to see everyone on the Pill. Pro-lifers don't consider women inferior just because they ovulate. We don't see it as something to be medically or surgically corrected.

Pro-lifers are indifferent to pro-choicers' ovaries--and their tonsils, spleens, and gall bladders. We're concerned with the children and women they slaughter.

Pro-lifers address the real issue: Is killing children something that civilized people do? Pro-choicers have avoided the issue for over 20 years by going off on bizarre tangents about prayer beads and body organs. Let's get back to the topic, and let the Catholics say their prayers in peace.